0.9% GM, Still Organic
by Matthew Sparkes, London, UK on 06.13.07
We’re not really anti-GM here at TreeHugger; we realise that the science could equally provide solutions or problems. Genetic mutations occur naturally every day, and the vast majority of them are less capable of survival than existing strains, so die out. They’re not likely to spread far, except with human help - evolution is by far a more reliable designer than any team of humans could ever be (no offence to our geneticist readers).
However, we do believe that you should be aware of exactly what goes into your food, which is why it’s somewhat of a shock to find out that European agriculture ministers have decided that foods containing 0.9% GM ingredients can still be labelled "GM-free".
It’s caused outcry among those who support organic farming, provoking fears of genetic contamination. However, the decision was made because more sensitive tests to prove organic methods were deemed to be too costly. Testing for a 0.9% content can be done rather more easily, and allows a small boundary for accidental contamination. Agriculture commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said, "It can be very tempting to say 'zero tolerance', but that wouldn't work in real life. To avoid accidental contamination, it would be so expensive to produce organic products that it would damage the market completely; it would simply kill the sector."
Whether you are OK with eating GM crops or not is a personal choice. I don’t have a problem with it, but some do, and they should be aware of what products contain GM ingredients. Vegetarians choose to not eat meat, not to eat food with less than 0.9% meat, and this is no different. Yes, the tests may be expensive, but they are necessary. :: The Guardian
See also :: Extreme makeover- Genetically Modified Apples :: Venezuela Bans Genetically Engineered Crops
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I agree that consumers should get what they think they are getting, thus it should be made clear that organic-certified foods could contain up to 0.9% GM content. Then, if sufficient market demand exists, another agency will arise to provide a stricter level of certification to those willing to pay the premium.
To demand that the mainstream organic certification be made more expensive to satisfy the demands of what may be a few purists would harm organic foods as a whole. The price premium for organic foods is already a major hurdle to their wider use.
If organic buyers are truly concerned about the wider use of GM foods on the environment, they would choose to allow a bit of the stuff into their own foods in order to promote organic foods in general. That way, fewer GM crops are grown, and everyone comes out ahead.
Although I sympathize with those that are offended at the thought of any amount of gm content to be allowed to be in food labeled gm free, I have to say something about the vegetarian comment because it is a similar situation.
As someone who keeps a 400 sq ft inner city garden and attempts to do so organically, I can tell you from experience that none of our fruits or vegetables are perfectly free of animal products. Even forgetting the small amount of various insect parts allowed by the fda and usda during the packaging and transporting process (if you buy from a store), there are still the hundreds to thousands of small bugs that are hardly ever visible. Most of them are too small to see without a microscope and many embed themselves in the plant so they cannot be washed off. Nature does not allow any plant or animal to live in complete species isolation.
It is perfectly reasonable to be vegetarian on health, wellness or moral grounds, however to believe that you are truly free of animal products because you eat vegetarian is a case of self-delusion. To be a vegetarian or a not is not a matter of black and white, rather it is entirely a field of shades of grey.
Reminds me when I saw the $27/pound granola in the local uber-organic market here in Portland. My eyeballs nearly popped out of their sockets, considering that I usually only pay about $3.00/pound.